T-SHIRTS picturing Adolf Hitler doing a Nazi salute and emblazoned with key dates of his bloody campaign across Europe have been removed from sale at Birmingham shop following a furious outburst.

Last week the Sunday Mercury reported that a leading Jewish group and anti fascist campaigners had hit out at the tops on sale at T.W Ryder Ltd Army & Navy Stores in Harborne, Birmingham, for £8.99.

The T-shirts featured stages of the warmonger’s rampage as though they were tour dates for a rock band.

They also portrayed Mussolini’s fatal alliance with Hitler as though he was a back-up act stating: “Adolf Hitler European Tour 1939-45. Benni Mussolini confirmed as support.”

Now T.W Ryder director Craig Owen has removed the T-shirts and apologised for the offence they caused.

“We came in on Monday morning and the first thing we did was take them off sale,” he told the Sunday Mercury.

“We offer our sincere apologies, it was never our intention to cause any offence, which is why we took swift action.

Problem

“They were just a product line we took on, but will not be selling anymore.

“If any customers have a problem with anything we do, we urge them to come to us so we can deal with it.

“It wasn’t just us selling them either though, I know other stores in Birmingham have them on sale.”

Harborne Labour Councillor Elaine Williams said she was shocked by the T-shirts.

“They were in very bad taste, there is nothing funny or humorous about Hitler, the Holocaust or the events surrounding mass murder.

“I have spoken to the store manager Craig Owen who offered a sincere apology for any offence caused and had already removed the T-shirts from sale.”

More than 60 million people lost their lives after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, which marked the start of World War II.

The most disturbing aspect of the campaign was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of Jewish people, gypsies and homosexuals.

It was the biggest mass genocide in history and is referred to as the Holocaust.

Six million Jews were rounded up and gassed in extermination camps.

Yet the T-shirts callously refer to the Polish invasion as a ‘surprise appearance’.

Nearly three million Polish Jews were murdered during the war.

They also had a crass “sold out quickly” note to the date for the Nazi invasion of France, which ended swiftly with the surrender of the French government in 1940.

Hitler’s planned invasion of Britain in September 1940 – dropped after brave RAF pilots won the fight for the skies in the Battle of Britain – was brushed off as “Great Britain (Cancelled – problem with flight)” on the tops.

The final date featured on the T-shirts was Hitler’s suicide with Eva Braun in Berlin as Russian forces captured the city in May 1945. They referred to this as: “Private Bunker performance with wife”.

Ruth Jacobs, spokeswoman for the Representative Council of Birmingham and West Midlands Jewry, previously said the tops were “tasteless”.

And Weyman Bennett, joint national secretary of Unite Against Fascism, told the Sunday Mercury they were “disgraceful” and threatened to hold a protest outside the store.